Comic books have come a long way from the days of Batman, Superman and Spiderman. Before these superheroes made it to the big screen, their exploits were confined to little boxes in flimsy magazines. They inspired generations of young readers who stopped paying attention to comics in their teens, and may have missed some of the remarkable developments in the genre.

Today's comics and graphic novels are dealing with increasingly complex characters with storylines. And with the populatity of movies like Hellboy, Sin City and Watchmen, "graphic novels" have become more mainstream - even the New York Times reviews them.

Today, Where We Live, a conversation about graphic novels and comic books.

Southern Connecticut State University will be presenting a panel Subcultures, Semiotics, Sexualities and Superheroes: Textual/Pictorial Methodologies in Graphic Narrative Media on Saturday April 18th. For more information, see link below.

When the Doonesbury character BD lost his leg in Iraq, it kind of brought the war home to me in a way that documentaries, news, even having a 2nd cousin critically injured in Iraq, did not. I grew up with Doonesbury, remember reading the strip in college, and it felt like an old friend had gotten injured.

omigosh. i wasn't even going to turn on your show thinking, comic books? not my thang. and then i heard howard talking and remember him well from reading 'alternative' newspapers back in the day when i too lived in birmingham. in fact, now that i hear the subject of race and bigotry is being addressed in comics i'm fascinated --- some of the attitudes i've become aware of since living in long island, ny, for the last 18 years may be even worse than what i remember in birmingham!

Just wondering shat your guest thought of things like "RAW" by Art Spiegelman and other work that is experimental/fine art oriented. It seems like work like that is ignored by comic people. When I saw RAW for the first time it changed my life.